Winthrop, Massachusetts. It’s a quiet little seaside town bordering booming Boston. I grew up here. Spent 25 years of my life 100 feet from Boston Harbor. It wasn’t until I moved (for love) to Virginia that I realized how amazing that last sentence is.

Virginia’s state motto – Virginia is for Lovers – proved to be very true for my then boyfriend and me. In October 2011, Jared proposed in an apple orchard and in October 2012, we wed in a barn. Yeah, I play a good country bumpkin but believe you me – I missed the city of Boston.

I missed the salt air, the city lights, the way everyone rakes leaves in a Pats jersey and barbecues in a Sox hat. But most of all – I missed my family.

But now Jared & I have formed our own little family and as far as I’m concerned, New England was where we were meant to set up shop.

I wasn’t sold on Winthrop though. Not. At. All. Winthrop was where my old friends still had their old jobs, the CVS pharmacist was my 6th grade boyfriend and you can’t walk down the street without seeing someone’s mother or cousin or ex-hairdresser.

But Jared didn’t know any of that. He saw a town with more sand than concrete. Where anywhere you go, you’re 200 feet from water. And while you’re blissfully seaside, you’re still a tunnel or bridge or 4 T stops from the state capital. That last argument kinda sunk in when I got a job in Cambridge.

November 28th – phone Interview. A week later – flown to Cambridge to meet the office. The next day – job offer. Two weeks later – our Richmond apartment was packed into three moving cubes and Jared and I were northbound.

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